33 #2
Khalani scanned the room, searching for a way they could break free. A dozen soldiers waited nearby with loaded guns. With them standing guard, it’d be nearly impossible to escape.
But Brock slightly shifted his weight.
Ever so carefully, he drew a small blade from his back pocket.
Khalani’s pulse raced as she glanced back at the men, but their focus was locked on the Governor, waiting for his command.
She had to keep Alexander Huxley talking—give Brock the distraction he needed.
“Where did you come from?” she demanded through clenched teeth. “How are you still alive, and why the hell are we here?”
Alexander turned to her, a devilish smile curling his lips. In a flash, the cold Governor transformed back into the charismatic leader of Apollo.
“So many questions,” he mused. “But you might find it difficult to hear the answer. You have to see it.”
The spark in his eyes made her skin crawl as he moved to the back of the room, fiddling with a device on the wall. They nearly jumped when a projection took up the center of the room, depicting a lush, green world.
“This is what the earth used to look like,” Alexander Huxley began, slowly circling behind their chairs.
“A completely balanced ecosystem sprawling with life. But then, something happened that had never occurred before on this planet. A new species came along. One capable of manipulating its environment, solving complex problems…even circumventing its own extinction.”
The film before them fast-forwarded into a time-lapse of people riding horse-drawn carriages, driving sleek cars, and waltzing through a metropolis with buildings that stretched toward the clouds.
“Humans used to coexist harmoniously with the earth,” he continued, “but then they became fascinated with constructs of their own making. Wealth. Status. How many ‘likes’ attributed to self-worth. Greed became the disease they never developed a cure for. Their leaders valued profits over safeguarding the planet, and as the rich got richer, the rest of humanity was left to fight for the scraps. And war became inevitable.”
The image transformed into a man wearing a black suit with his tie messily undone. He sat at a news desk, his eyes stark.
“We come to you with terrible, breaking news. A nuclear bomb has just struck the Capitol.”
The screen flickered to a shaky footage of bombs soaring across the sky, until one veered off course and hit a major city.
“I’ve seen this before,” Khalani whispered. It was the same image she’d dreamed about before she woke up tied to the chair.
The Governor’s enigmatic eyes darted to her, and for a second, his expression softened. “Yes, I suppose you would.”
Her breath hitched, but Alexander pivoted his attention back to the projector as raging fires and a desolate wasteland appeared.
“Humanity was finally reaping the consequences of its own destruction, but like the cockroach that refuses to die, a coalition came together to prevent extinction.”
“Project Helix,” she said quietly.
“Exactly.”
The Governor crossed his arms as the image changed to the Prometheus building.
But instead of it being empty, hundreds of workers walked through labs, talking animatedly to each other over scribbled notebooks.
They collected plants. Tested animals. Her brain could barely comprehend the magnitude of what they’d come together to accomplish.
“When the environment was sustainable for life again, Project Helix would activate solar bots to spread plant seeds all over the planet. The cloned keystone animal species would then be reintroduced to their original habitats, and once humans finally started rebuilding on the surface, a digital arc of human knowledge would be available, ready for the taking.”
The Governor paused, as if he were circling through a lifetime of memory.
“Of course, scientists like Timothy Talbot knew that an even greater species would be needed to monitor Earth’s environment and activate Project Helix. That’s when they created Alan. But over the years, I find I much prefer Alexander.”
The Governor stared at the image, his eyes darkening.
“You’re Alan?” Derek gasped. “The AI system that’s been around for three hundred years?”
“Yes.”
Khalani’s chest rose and fell rapidly.
The man who oversaw Apollo, the one responsible for her parents’ deaths, was created by the very humans who were trying to save the future.
“But why?” she shouted. “If you were created to help us, then why have you kept humans underground for all these years? Why did you kill my parents?”
Alexander scoffed. “They killed themselves. They wanted to reach the surface before it was ready. I had no choice but to take them out.”
“They didn’t deserve to die!”